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Category: Educational System

Betsy DeVos is the current Secretary of Education under President Donald Trump. Her background of political activity, school choice, and school vouchers have put her in the spotlight as a reformer, and as such she will have her hands full with the teacher lobbies and the entrenched public school systems as they are currently arranged.

Betsy is the wife of former Amway CEO, Dick DeVos and she and her husband have been very active in Republican politics for quite some time. Betsy was the chairwoman of the Republican Party in Michigan from 1996 to 2000, and she and her husband have been among the larger donors to the Republican Party over the years.

When DeVos was nominated for the position of Secretary of Education by President Trump, she received much criticism from people who openly stated that she would be bad for the position, however, DeVos has long championed the plight of the poorer students of the inner cities stating that even though there has been much talk about improving education for the masses, there has been very little in the way of tangible results.

From the 1960s until today the answer to education was always just spend more money, but the graduation rates are deplorable, and DeVos cites statistics to prove it. According to DeVos, children deserve more choices and better school environments that old, run-down schools that are falling apart and which are not well suited at all for education.

Of course, DeVos has received heavy criticism from the establishment of education because those who are in control do not want to lose control. DeVos claims that teachers and parents on the local level know better what students need than bureaucrats in Washington D.C. and that local decisions about education will be much better for students and parents.

Betsy DeVos goes on to point out that one size that fits all needs in education does not exist and that more can be done to help the local populations do better at determining their own policies that fit their needs with guidelines as far as accountability.

DeVos was in favor and helped sponsor a charter school movement in Detroit, Michigan where reading grades were twice as high as those in the Detroit Public schools. Critics like to point out that the grades in math were not very good, but math is a more progressive discipline, and most of the students were missing fundamental skills that had been missed in their earlier grades. The Detroit graduation rates in these Charter schools were also very high, showing that there is hope for reform in the inner cities.

DeVos knows that you don’t change the cultural aspects of education overnight either, but there has to be an attempt to bring parents into the equation to help their children see the need. Parents working with teachers are the key, and that is going to be a big part of Devos’s emphasis. Visit Betsy’s profile on twitter.com.